ON THE SIDELINES : Tennis Tours Form Drug Policy

The men’s and women’s tennis tours today announced a joint drug-testing policy and adopted several identical regulations in their Codes of Conduct.

The men’s Assn. of Tennis Professionals started drug testing in 1987, while the Women’s Tennis Assn. began a program last year.

“Today we have sharpened the focus of both our drug-testing programs by making them essentially the same,” said Mark Miles, ATP Tour’s chief executive officer.

The ATP tour does not disclose results of its random drug-testing program. Rules call for an automatic nine-month suspension for performance-enhancing drugs.

The suspensions would have to be made public, according to ATP rules. There have been no such suspensions since the men’s tour began drug testing.

The two tours also agreed on some on-court practices--that the time allowed between points shall not exceed 25 seconds and that there will be 90 seconds for changeovers.

The so-called three-step Penalty Schedule (warning, point, default) will be used for on-court code violations. Time violations are not part of the Penalty Schedule.